Friends, family visit Jacksonville funeral home to mourn three children killed in Northside fire

Jennifer Fowler kisses her daughter Hattie, 6, at the visitation for Fowler's other three children Tuesday, June 24, 2014 in Jacksonville, Florida. Three of her four children, Richard "Bubba" Fowler, 4, Rachel, 2 and 10-month-old Janet died in a house fire in Oceanway last Thursday with their grandmother, Shelia "Rosie" Swearingen. The funeral for them is Wednesday.

Richard “Bubba” Fowler loved to be outside riding a bicycle or finding a way to aggravate his sisters. The 4-year-old would pretend to be a bus driver or a mechanic fixing things with his daddy’s tools.

Rachel Fowler followed Bubba anywhere he went. Always bashful, the 2-year-old carried a blanket while chasing after her brother.

Janet Fowler, 10 months old, called her bottles “bobo,” which baffled her grandfather because he didn’t know where she picked it up.

“That was my special little angel,” 68-year-old Clayton Woods said.

Dozens of the family’s friends and relatives filed through Hardage Giddens Town & Country Funeral Home on Normandy Boulevard Tuesday evening a day before the funeral for the children and their grandmother Sheila Swearingen, 53.

A Northside fire killed all four June 17. A 13-year-old boy pulled Hattie Fowler, the lone survivor, out of the house before she was seriously injured. Tuesday, the 6-year-old smiled while posing with people in front of the funeral home in a blue dress.

Both of the children’s parents were incarcerated when the blaze ripped through a double-wide trailer on Palmetto Street on the Northside. Rickey Fowler, 54, had been jailed just days before the fire on drug possession and child neglect charges. The mother, 31-year-old Jennifer Fowler, was being held in a drug rehabilitation program after violating probation on a domestic battery charge.

Both attended the viewing after authorities released them June 18. Jennifer Fowler cried several times while outside.

Mike Fowler, a cousin who worked with his uncle Rickey Fowler, said the family is trying to get through the next few days so they can start putting their lives back together.

At 68 and recently acquiring a pacemaker because of heart issues, Woods never believed he would be at his grandchildren’s funeral. But he’s experienced the death of children before. His first son died while an infant and another one of his sons died when a drunken driver struck him while he walked along a road.

Woods said this week he’s also thought about a time when he rushed into a fire to save a friend.

He still wonders about what his grandchildren went through — how much they suffered. He’s done a lot of questioning about why this is happening to him.

I have no idea who decided it would be appropriate to show photos of these two people who maybe conceived the children but were not parents to them. The fact that both were in jail while children died and had endangered these children before makes this inclusion disgusting. Only thing missing was the sex offender "guardian".